Susan Wiggs - Just Breathe

Then, as now, Aurora’s looks had been striking, wide brown eyes and glossy black hair, creamy olive-toned skin and an expression of bewilderment at a world that had treated her harshly. From the first moment he saw her, Will had made it his mission to atone for the sins committed against this child. He had given up his dreams and plans for the future in order to protect her.

And not once, not for a single second, did he regret any of the sacrifices he made.

Or so he told himself.

She wiped her mouth with her napkin and suddenly she was thirteen-year-old Aurora again, half-grown, her appearance turning womanly in a way Will found intimidating.

“She’s Salma Hayek,” Birdie had remarked last summer after taking Aurora shopping for swimsuits.

“Who’s that?”

“Latina actress who looks like a goddess. Aurora is absolutely gorgeous, Will. You should be proud of her.”

“What, like I had one damn thing to do with the way she looks?”

Birdie had conceded his point. “What I mean is that she’s growing into her looks. She’s going to get a lot of attention because of it.”

“And getting attention for looks is a good thing.”

“It was for you, little brother,” Birdie had teased. “You were the prettiest thing the high school ever saw.”

The memories made him wince. He had been so full of himself, he was probably swollen like a tick with unearned pride.

Then Aurora had come into his life, helpless as an abandoned kitten, and everything else had ceased to matter. Will had dedicated himself to keeping her safe, helping her grow, giving her a good life. In turn, she had transformed him from a self-centered punk into a man with serious responsibilities.

“Why do I have to be so negative?” Aurora mused, finishing every crumb on her plate. “Gee whiz, Dad. Where do you want me to start?”

“With the truth. Tell me from your heart what’s so intolerable about your life.”

“Try everything.”

“Try being a little more specific.”

She stared at him, mutiny in her eyes. Then she pushed back from the table and went to get something from her backpack—a crumpled flyer printed on pale pink paper. “Is that specific enough for you?”

“Parents’ night at your school.” He knew exactly why that upset her, but decided to play dumb as he checked the date. “I can make it. I’m not on duty that night.”

“I know you can make it. It’s just that I hate it when they expect parents to show up.”

“What’s so bad about that?”

She plunked herself back down in her chair. “How about I have no mother. No idea who my father is.”

“He’s me,” Will said, fighting now to keep anger down. “And I’ve got the adoption papers to prove it.”

Thanks to Birdie, the family’s legal eagle, he had a father’s rights. Those had never been challenged—except by Aurora, who sometimes dreamed her “real” father was a noble political prisoner pining away for her in some Third World prison.

“Whatever,” she said, her inflection infuriating.

“Lots of kids have single parents,” he pointed out. “Is it really that bad here?” He gestured around the room, indicating their house. The wood-frame house, built in the 1930s, was nothing fancy, but it sat a block from the beach and had everything they needed—their own private bedrooms and bathrooms, a good stereo system and satellite TV.

“All right,” she said. “You win. Everything is just super.”

“Is this some new class you’re taking in seventh grade?” he asked. “Sarcasm 101?”

“It’s just a gift.”

“Congratulations.” He clinked his beer can against her milk glass. During his duty cycle, there was no drinking, of course, but on his first night off, he always had one beer. Just one, no more. Heavy drinking meant nothing but trouble. Last time he’d really tied one on, he had wound up married, with a stepdaughter. A guy couldn’t afford to do that more than once in a lifetime.

“So spill,” he said. “What’ll make you happy, and how can I give it to you?”

“Why does everything have to be so black-and-white with you, Dad?” she asked in annoyance.

“Maybe I’m color-blind. You should help me pick out a shirt for parents’ night.”

“Don’t you get it? I don’t want you to go,” she wailed.

He didn’t let on that her attitude was an arrow to his heart. There was never a good time for a child to be left by her mother, but Will figured Marisol had picked the worst possible age. When Marisol took off, Aurora had been too young to see her mother for what she was, yet old enough to hold on to memories, like a drowning victim clinging to a life raft. Over the years, Aurora had gilded those memories with a child’s idealism. There was no way a flesh-and-blood stepfather could measure up to a mother who braided hair, served pancakes for dinner and knew all the words to The Lion King.

He’d never stop trying, though. “I hate to disappoint you, but I’m going,” he told her.

Aurora burst into tears. This, lately, had become her specialty. As if cued by some signal he couldn’t see, she leaped up and took off. In a moment, he’d hear a thud as she flung herself on the bed.

Will thought about having another beer, but decided against it. Sometimes he felt so alone in this situation, he had the sensation of drifting out to sea. He went over to the slate message board by the door. He and Aurora used it for reminders and grocery lists. Picking up the chalk, he wrote, “Parents’ night—Thurs.” so he wouldn’t forget to attend. Upstairs, Aurora landed on her bed with an angry thump.

As she drove away from town, Sarah told herself not to dwell on Jack and the things he’d said. Instead, her mind worried the conversation as though seeking hidden meaning in every syllable and inflection: You’re not ready to acknowledge your part in this yet.

Of all the things he had said, that was surely the most absurd. What was she guilty of? Trading the gas-guzzling GTO for a Mini?

Please come home, Jack had urged her.

I am home.

She didn’t feel it yet. She had never been comfortable in her own skin, no matter where she lived. Now she realized something else. Her heart had no home. Although she’d grown up here, she had always looked elsewhere—outward—for a place to belong. She’d never quite found that. Maybe she would discover that it was a place she’d left behind. A place like this.

It was a land of lush abundance and mysterious wilderness, demarcated by flat-topped cypress trees sculpted by the wind, gnarled California oaks furred with moss and lichen, forget-me-nots growing wild in hilly meadows and ospreys nesting atop the light poles.

Her father lived in the house his father had built. The Moons were an old local family, their ancestors among the town’s first settlers, along with the Shafters, the Pierces, the Moltzens and Mendozas. There was a salt marsh behind the home and a commanding view of the bay known locally as Moon Bay, even though no printed map ever designated it as such. At the end of the gravel road was the Moon Bay Oyster Company, housed in a long, barn-red building that projected partially onto a dock. The enterprise had been started by Sarah’s grandfather after he came home wounded from World War II. He had been shot in the leg by a German in Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge, and he walked with a permanent limp. He had a good head for business and a deep love of the sea. He chose to grow oysters because they flourished in the naturally clean waters here and were prized by shops and restaurants in the Bay Area.

His widow, June Garrett, whose married name—Moon—made her sound like a Dr. Seuss character, was Sarah’s grandmother. She still lived in what the family called the “new” house simply because it was built twenty years after the original one. It was a whitewashed bungalow with a picket fence at the end of the lane, a hundred yards from the main house. After Grandpa had died, Gran’s sister, May, had moved in with her. The two sisters lived together, happy in their retirement.